BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - This could be just an­other day at the beach for the Southeastern Conference.

The league definitely will tell the world the size of the financial pie the member in­stitutions will divide from the soon-to-be-completed academic year.

It'll be a record. It always is.

College football, at least at the top of the food chain, re­mains a growth industry.

The league likely will present a united front on its preference for what the new college football postseason should look like.

Expect some kind of offi­cial stance in favor of a four­-team playoff that includes the top four teams in the na­tion with the semifinals played at neutral bowl loca­tions.

The league possibly will confirm the informed spec­ulation that an SEC Net­work, coming to a cable sys­tem near you, is in the works.

In other words, the end of the SEC's annual spring meeting could be business as usual.

Public consensus after private confrontation.

A bully pulpit used to maximum effect.

To the victors and the vanquished alike go the spoils.

But if you've listened to the chatter going into and coming out of Destin, you know another possibility exists.

You know dissenting voices have been raised and fundamental disagreements expressed about the direction of the conference.

You know today could be the beginning of a brave new world in the SEC.

It also could be the end of the old world as we know it. The league's presidents have the power to decide if they vote on future schedules.

Is that overly dramatic? Not if prominent power brokers such as South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier and LSU Athletics Director Joe Alleva get their way.

They don't want to just the change future SEC football and basketball schedules in different ways to accommodate a league that starts competing in the fall with 14 teams for the first time. They want to change those schedules in a fundamental way.

They want to go away from what turned a regional collection of mostly state institutions into the most powerful intercollegiate athletics conference in the country. They want to forget where the SEC came from. Which would be the biggest mistake the league has ever made.

Kevin Scarbinsky is a columnist for The Birmingham News. His column is published on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

The SEC didn't become an 800-pound gorilla because of the size of its television markets or the reach of its footprint.

Tuscaloosa and Auburn will never be mistaken for New York and LA, but folks in the Big Apple and Hollywood and points in between tune in to the Iron Bowl because the Tide and Tigers have done more than make history on a fairly regular basis. They are history.

Some outsiders may watch to catch up on the latest fan shenanigans, to try to feel superior to the Bammers and the Barners, but at heart, it matters to them because it matters to us, and it matters to us because it mattered to our parents and their parents and so on.

That's why Auburn had to stay in the Western Division when Missouri decided to come aboard. It makes no sense geographically, but historically, you couldn't have it any other way. Alabama and Auburn have to play every year, and they're not alone.

Dave Hart gets it, maybe because he's lived it.

He is the Tennessee athletics director. He's been the executive AD at Alabama. He played basketball for the Crimson Tide. He knows in his gut what Tennessee vs. Alabama means in football, what Tennessee vs. Kentucky means in basketball.

It means a game that means a little more than your average conference game. It means a rivalry. It means the kind of rivalry stoked by the kind of passion they don't always see in Storrs and Lubbock and Ames and Pullman.

As long as the SEC exists, Alabama and Tennessee should play every year in football. Ditto Auburn and Georgia. Kentucky and Tennessee should play twice every year in basketball. Same for Alabama and Mississippi State.

Some change is good and necessary for an industry leader to maintain its position, but the SEC could lose some of the annual rivalries in one or both of the two major sports that gained the league a national reputation.